Absolutism And Imperialism

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As we covered the Enlightenment, Dr. Dowling made one thing very clear: the profits made from colonization and slavery abroad almost exclusively funded The Enlightenment. The age of colonization and imperialism caused many lasting effect on host countries, and the people who inhabited them, including allusions to The Enlightenment. Two contrasting political theories worked simultaneously in The Enlightenment that significantly shaped the practices of colonization and imperialist practices; liberalism and absolutism.
Indisputably coined during the period of Enlightenment is the term Liberalism. Jean-Jacque Rousseau, a Genevan philosopher, wrote of the ‘inalienable natural rights’ of man in his book The Social Contract of 1762. He describes people …show more content…

The undertone for these the various countries that gained independence was The Enlightenment, specifically the French and Haitian Revolutions of 1789 and 1791, respectively. While both revolutions did experience casualties, the purpose of these conflicts were primarily for political and social reasons. In France, for example people no longer identified with letting the divine king bestow rights upon them, but would rather let power be vested in ‘the people of France.’ The Enlightenment was a political movement that gave power to the people, the majority population, through the adoption of ‘inalienable rights’ which are rights that are bestowed upon you at birth, and cannot be taken away. During the Haitian Revolution, the constant question of “What about our inalienable rights?” was posed. France had used Haiti seclusively for economic profit, giving the country much control of agricultural industries. Haiti even acquired the name ‘The Pearl of The Antilles,’ because of its immaculate utility. Due to extremely inhumane systems of servitude Haitians had a revolution that modeled the French Revolution. The Haitian Revolution was so powerful in fact that many slave owners in America were hesitant to speak about it in front of their slaves, some newspapers also intentionally left news of the Haitian Revolution out of their editions, as to not give slaves ideas of

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